


The Morning After

by Yusariis



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Borderlands Halloween Bingo, Fluff, M/M, Sickfic, Werewolf!Jack, Witch Boi Rhys, guest appearance by Jeffrey the pet spiderant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 06:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yusariis/pseuds/Yusariis
Summary: The full moon sets, the sun rises, and the party's over. Jack can only deal with the fallout from here.





	The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my ever-wonderful beeb for editing. Credit to ThePyromaniacEngineer for Jeffrey's very existance and for letting me use him for fic - read it here! - https://archiveofourown.org/works/20706440.  
For my Halloween Bingo!

_ There was nothing like the wind blowing through his hair. Especially when he had more hair for it to run through. When it ghosted through him as he ran on stronger, heartier legs, paws that could handle the push and the strain. Whistled between his sharp teeth and lolling tongue. The adrenaline pushed through in laughing barks, and when Jack screamed in delight, it was a feral, joyous song. _

_ The night’s are crisp in the fall, and the full moons are all the sweeter for it. Those nights where he’s transfigured are the nights where he’s truly alive. _

\---

The mornings after a transformation felt like death. 

Jack didn’t even have the energy to roll over, pun notwithstanding. The sunlight streaming through the windows hurt. His body was sore from overexertion as his muscles wound down into something presentable at work - that is to say, human - and everything was re-condensing and resettling. 

Worst of all, he’d shed after he passed out. He woke up gagging on a wad of hair in his mouth. And he was _ freezing _.

Good fucking morning, Jack.

He shoved two of his fingers into his mouth to try and scrape the hair off his tongue, managing clumps, but not the singular strands. Those were going to cling to the back of his throat all week and the cycle of sore throats would begin again from all the gagging and throat clearing. He did, in fact, gag shortly after a second round of scraping - they weren’t claws anymore, but his jagged nails were still sharp.

_ So it begins, _ Jack thought, miserably.

He heard the door to his bedroom creak open. Soft footsteps followed, light skittering behind them.

Jack grumbled, incoherently (it was supposed to be “‘M’not up yet,”).

“I’m just here for the sheddings,” Rhys whispered, patting his head gently. It did help his headache, both the petting and the soft tone and movements. Jack hummed.

“Morning to you, too.” Rhys said. “Or, afternoon, actually. It’s two thirty.” 

Jack tried to focus more on the softness of the broom sweeping the floor, and less on the sharp chirping of Rhys’ spiderant. Human hearing was edging out the keener sense he’d had last night, but slowly.

“I’ll run a bath when you’re conscious again,” Rhys continued, “infused with Drain-o so you don’t clog my pipes.” 

Jack’s sarcastic hum slid into a snore as he passed out.

Hours later, the sun had pulled away from the window and Jack was able to trudge to the bathroom. The lights throughout the penthouse were mercifully kept off. Soft candlelight helped him see the bathroom floor. The robe and towel left for him were duly noted and Jack plopped into the tub and soaked himself for about an hour in hot water. A smell clung to the inside of his nose, faint but poignant enough to fill thick in his head and make it throb, despite everything. It was the faint smell of smoke from the candles. Definitely lavender, but Jack couldn’t make out any witchy whatever-the-fucks Rhys would’ve added in - Bath and Body Works was (probably) not a wiccan cabal.

Even throwing the robe on afterwards, he was still freezing. Losing his pelt was the worst part of his post-moon hangover. Sore muscles and headaches called for medicine. Loud noises called for earplugs. Freezing to the bone begged for a warmth that never truly came.

Huddled into himself, Jack shuffled out to find Rhys. Tracking by scent was out of the question; his senses were still too sensitive. Jack slowly shuffled himself down the hall towards a series of chirps from the kitchen. And lo, at the table, Rhys sat.

Rhys was working on… something. Something brew-y, probably, since his familiar - the stubborn spiderant fucker Jack brought back for Rhys a few months back - was perched on the table next to him. In the corner of the kitchen, Jack saw the broom Rhys had used to wipe the hair from the bedroom. It wasn’t one the cleaning crew used, that gathered everything nicely - this was the one Rhys pulled out only for Jack’s pelt, stray snippings and spilled potion powders.

“Time?” Jack asked, getting both of their attention. The spiderant propped up and readied itself. Rhys held his hand up and chirped at the little bastard in a high octave.

“The whole Familiarizing thing is working, huh?” Jack asked as Rhys stroked the spiderants abdomen. “Your weird spiderant noises are getting better.” 

“I’ve never had a familiar before,” Rhys said with a smile, “I wanna get the communication right.”

“Sounds close enough that I’d’ve lunged at you last night,” Jack smirked at Rhys’ eyeroll as he repeated, “time?”

“For bed,” Rhys got up and pushed Jack gently, too gently to do much, but Jack was too weary from his full-moon hangover to fight it. He turned at Rhys’ hand and they started a slow walk through the penthouse. “Yes, I called you in sick for you. No, they will not call here, I muted the ringers and your phone is in the kitchen," damnit, “so no work calls tomorrow, either.”

“Coffee?” Jack asked, his stomach churning at the thought.

“Tea,” Rhys replied. “Decaffeinated, herbal, personal blend, with honey for your throat,” Rhys opened the door to the bedroom. Jack trudged through the room to the bed, now neatly made and with several more blankets.

“Hair’s all gone?”

“Changed the sheets,” Rhys agreed. “I need as much of your pelt as I can get.” Jack just grumbled in reply, getting as far under the blankets as he could and finally, _ finally _, felt a reasonable temperature again. 

“Tea’s on the bedside,” Rhys said as Jack dug himself deeper into his new blanket. “Drink iiiit.”

Jack groaned, rolled over and loosely propped himself up to grab the mug. He took a swig, finding it blissfully herb-y. “Hate this shit,” Jack lied, setting it down again (“All of it,” Rhys insisted and Jack knew this was a _blend_ of something more than tea) and clearing his throat again, despite himself. His tongue rubbed against his throat and he felt three more hairs come to the tip of his tongue.

“These are getting pretty rough on you, Jack,” Rhys said, moving to sit on the bed. Jack just waved his hand.

“Different prey, same hunt,” Jack said, grabbing the mug to choke down another gulp, “You give me this shit every time, what’s _ in _ this?”

“Poultice,” Rhys admitted, as if he didn’t have dozens of recipes for those. “For pain relief - I left out the mustard seed and eucalyptus and brewed it in a spiderant-silk tea-pouch of your pelt-” Jack choked at that, Rhys pressing on more firmly, “to help your body adjust quicker-” 

“That’s why you needed my pelt? To feed me my own body hair? That’s disgusting!” Jack gagged, setting the mug down.

“It’s good for you right now,” Rhys nudged Jack’s free arm. “Your body’s adjusting to being human again, and the saliva from grooming yourself has the same bacteria that spreads your werewolf gene -it’s gunna make your transition easier. Y’know, like with hangovers? Hair of the dog?”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“...and I got slammed with emergency orders for Morning After blends on my HecatEtsy store this morning,” Rhys shrugged with terribly feigned nonchalance. 

“Oh, well, you’re _ welcome_,” Jack scoffed, “when do I see a cut of these profits, again?”

“When they ship out next month and I use them to buy you a nice new collar,” Rhys joked, his chuckle slowly fading down. He took a second before saying, “Maybe it’s time to hang this up.”

“I don’t need to be cured,” Jack said, defensively, “I’m not a friggin sickness-”

“Not _ that_,” Rhys cut in, hand on Jack’s head again - whatever tension he’d had slipped off when Rhys started stroking his hair again (werewolf genes can be so _ bullshit _ sometimes). He ran his fingers through the thick of it - longer, more ruly, and in a new need of a cut. “I’m saying maybe you shouldn’t spend your full moons _ hunting _ anymore.”

“Not this again,” Jack groaned, pulling the covers up more.

“Yes, this again,” Rhys pressed down with the next pet and moved the way Jack liked. “You’re 48, Jack, and 49 is just around the corner. It’s hitting you _hard_. You were down for four days last month and now you’re even worse.”

Jack shrugged, “The little bastards didn’t wanna go down.”

“What ‘little bastards’,” Rhys asked, “could possibly have given you, Willhelm _ and _Nisha a run for your money?”

“ ‘S’in the bag,” Jack gestured with his head, pressing into Rhys’ hand one last time before it was pulled away. The pressure on the mattress lessened when Rhys got up to grab the bag.

It hits Jack, then, that he made a mistake last night. When the bag rustles, he realizes his prey isn’t entirely dead, just as Rhys screams “_Oh my god!” _ , followed by a hard thud and sickening, cut-off squeak. “Oh my _ God_, Jack.”

“...You’re welcome?” He tried.

Rhys just stared at him, “_I’m _welcome.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “you _ are.” _

“...Jack...” Rhys’ voice was thick, and he gagged. He swallowed, and pressed a fist to his mouth. “I'm not cooking that. Its stomach is ripped open.”

“It's not for eating, dumbass." Jack chuffed, once, and opened an eye to look up at Rhys, whose brow furrowed. “You had that big order for those nymphs, right? They practically threw a fuckin rave last night, and asked you for a bunch of fertility charms and stuff and you needed-”

“Varkid eggs,” Rhys said. He worriedly added, “you worked yourself out like this over a swarm of varkids?”

“Not the big eggs, the small eggs.” Jack said, ignoring the last part. “Small eggs are different, for some reason, you said.”

“They’re unfertilized. Varkids keep those under their hatches until they mate,” Rhys said, “and then they burrow into the nests-”

“Yeah, yeah, cool, great, you don’t need those ones.”

“....You,” Rhys stopped, then continued, “brought home a varkid…. Because I’m out of their eggs?”

“You need ‘em.” Jack shrugged. 

“...Oh,” Quietly, Jack preened at Rhys’ soft tone. “That’s… Jack.” He sat on the bed again. “...So when you brought home-”

“You were out of silk and it sticks to my fur,” Jack said. Out of silk for various reasons - for the Craft, for luck, and for the time he’d stuck Jack down to the bed to train the dog to beg. “And you don’t like ‘em dead anyway,” Jack added, quick to squash the twitch in two rather sensitive places.

“It’s back luck,” Rhys said, in a much calmer tone than three months ago, when he’d shrieked it in the middle of Jack’s scuffle with his prey, “it’s not about whether or not I like them dead.”

“You kept it.”

“_He _ has a name,” Rhys reminded, “and it’s _ Jeffrey _.” And, Jack be damned, the little shithead chirped at that. Kiss-ass.

“I still think Dickmuffin Stinkypiss fits better,” Jack grumbled as he pressed into his pillow. Rhys resumed stroking.

“....Is that why Nisha and Wilhelm had to pry you off that baby crystalisk?” he asked, quieter. And this one, Jack has no proud answer for. Just a scar on his back and a limp that had the audacity to pop back up come the hangover. “You really need to pace yourself better, Jack.”

“Gotcha.”

“Jack, I _ mean _ it.”

“You always mean it,” Jack waved Rhys’ hand off. “Lemmie sleep.”

Rhys got up. Seconds later, Jack felt a dip on the other side of the bed, a smaller one crawling to pool at the foot of it. “You should deal with the eggs.”

“They’ll be fine,” Rhys said softly, wrapping an arm around Jack from over the blankets, “as long as they stay under the hatch.” Rhys pulled himself closer, kissing under Jacks’ ear. “You know this is kill-presenting, right?” he asked (A welcome diversion).

"What?" Grunted Jack.

“Y’know, like when cats catch mice-”

“I’m not a cat-”

“-and bring it back to you to teach you how to hunt? Make you see how tough they are?”

“I’m providing for my family,” was his dog brains’ gut reaction. 

Rhys clicked his tongue and cooed, “aww, Jaaack.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack shuffled deeper under the covers. “Get to sleep, buttercup.” 

The curtains were already drawn, the lights off at a snap of Rhys’ fingers. Jack eased into the darkness, grounded by the pressure against his back.

At least he was finally warm.


End file.
